Western Australia is currently experiencing an out of control mouse plague with populations exceeding 4,000 mice per hectare in some areas.
The mice are devastating newly planted crops, contaminating local businesses, and forcing grain producers to urgently apply stronger bait in order to mitigate hundreds of millions of dollars in potential agricultural damage
A leading mouse researcher is calling for urgent action as he says mice are at plague proportions in Western Australian grain paddocks. A population exceeding 800 mice per hectare is defined as a plague.
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Residents say that the number of mice in their homes is also unprecedented, with the little rodents chewing through plastic containers, milk cartons and food containers.
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One pest controller said that some infestations are at levels he has never seen before.
ABC.net reports: CSIRO research officer Steve Henry, who has studied reported mouse numbers in paddocks from Geraldton to Esperance, said the figures were alarming.
“I’m really concerned,” Mr Henry said.
“When you’re getting over two to three hundred mice per hectare, then you’ve really got cause for concern.
“They’re counting between three and four thousand burrows [six to eight thousand mice] per hectare in some locations.”
Mr Henry said he visited WA in 2022 when numbers were high, but this year the problem was worse.
Grain paddocks surround the small community of Morawa, 360 kilometres north-east of Perth.
Long-term resident and pest controller, Peter Cekanauskas, came home from a week away to find mice had taken root in his pantry.
“It was like a horror story,”he said.
“A dozen mice were visibly running over everything, amongst torn bags of self-raising flour and sugar.”
He placed 7.5 kilograms of bait around his property, which was consumed in less than three days — an amount he estimated could kill about 75 kilograms of mice.
Mr Cekanauskas said the problem was widespread, and he was being called out to more mouse infestations than ever before.
He said a resident told him mice had eaten their way through a plastic container of rolled oats, and nibbled through UHT milk containers, creating a flood.
“My supplier of chemicals has remarked that he’s had an increase of sales in this area,” he said.
